Martinsburg, West Virginia

Martinsburg is a city in and the county seat of Berkeley County, West Virginia. The city was founded by American Revolutionary War general Adam Stephen in 1778, and it was named for Colonel Thomas Bryan Martin, a Virginia planter. In 1792, a post office was built at Martinsburg; it was the first post office in what would later become West Virginia. In 1842, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached Martinsburg, and, in 1883, telephone service was established in the city. In 1889, electricity began to be furnished to the city. Due to restructuring from the 1940s to the 1970s, many of the mills and factories operating in Martinsburg shut down and went out of business, dealing a major blow to the local economy. In 2016, Martinsburg had a population of 17,687 people.